Café Munio: Chapter 4
Tsuna could feel his legs beginning to give out as he ran down the street with Lal Mirch chasing behind him. For some odd reason, Colonello was laughing as they sprinted at full speed down the pavement.
He wasn't even panting.
Tsuna, on the other hand, felt like he was going to faint. It had been five minutes, he was sure of it, of full-out sprinting and the most Tsuna had ever did in class was jog a few hundred meters.
By this time, they'd already made four full rounds of Namimori at impossible speeds, and Tsuna would have given up if not for the threat of an angry Lal Mirch behind them.
"She's going to kill us!" Tsuna gasped, feeling dizzy as they passed the lake, heading to Namimori Temple. "Absolutely crush us..."
Colonello laughed. "Oh, look, there're steps ahead!" he said cheerfully, and Tsuna groaned.
Steps?
"I… I can't…. can't…" Tsuna finally gave up and collapsed on the long trail of stone stairs leading up to the temple. "I surrender," he panted, leaning back on the steps. "I… can't… go…. one step… further…" he admitted.
"Ah, okay then." To Tsuna's surprise, Colonello sat down beside him on the steps. He saw Tsuna's surprised look and said, "A soldier does not abandon his comrade in times of danger!"
Well, this certainly classified as a time of danger, anyways.
"Speaking of Lal, where is she?" Colonello squinted off into the distance. "Have we lost her?"
"Ah… I think so," Tsuna breathed out a sigh of relief. "We were lucky, then…" He closed his eyes in exhaustion and slumped down, but a few seconds later his intuition screamed at him and Tsuna bolted back upright.
"Tsuna? What is it?" Colonello looked alarmed. He glanced around before seeing something behind Tsuna. "Oh…" His face rapidly paled.
A dark, menacing shadow loomed over Tsuna and he felt himself freeze. He forced himself to turn around and shakily breathed out. "H-Hibari-san…" he muttered in horror.
"You're crowding." The one and only carnivore raised his trademark deadly tonfas. "I'll bite you to death."
Even after seven years, Hibari would visit Namimori Middle to patrol his halls and scare the living crap out of all the unsuspecting rumors. Even years after he left, rumors still hung around Nami Middle about its infamous Head of the Discipline Committee. New students used to laugh it off, but the situation would soon change when Hibari arrived behind the unfortunate soul and beat him into the floor.
Nami Middle was a dangerous place.
Tsuna debated whether to cower or run—both suggestions seemed equally dangerous. He yelped as a glinting tonfa aimed a jab for his stomach, and was promptly pulled away by Colonello.
"Don't stand there, hey!" he hissed. "That's a bad battle strategy! Run!"
"How is that any better?" Tsuna groaned, but the adrenaline pumping through his veins helped him stumble up and sprint as fast as he could for the second time in ten minutes.
His side immediately flared up with pain, still aching from the cramps just a minute ago. Tsuna could barely hear the soft thuds of Hibari's footsteps on the ground, but something told him that the black-haired (now retired) demon of Namimori Middle was moving extremely quickly and this was a bad situation for him.
(Actually, Hibari was not only the retired demon of Nami Middle. He was also the newly appointed Satan of the whole Namimori, and now strode down the bustling streets of the happy town, sending cold glares at the shoppers that bunched together in groups. Quite terrifying.)
Colonello looked over his shoulder and winced. "A-ah, sorry Tsuna! I gotta go!" and he ran off, leaving Tsuna all alone. What happened to a soldier not abandoning his comrades?
"Why me?" Tsuna wailed, pounding down the stone pavement as quickly as he could, feeling desperately sorry for himself—and his feet.
A cold chill ran down his spine and Tsuna leapt forward onto the rough ground, leaving a few nasty, shallow scratches on his palms as a silver bullet whistled past the space where he had been.
"Idiot! You missed!" a hushed, angry voice whispered from the trees somewhere.
"S-sorry, boss!"
Tsuna nearly screamed. Someone was trying to kill him! Or possibly kidnap him!
"Well, no matter! All together then!" the same angry voice from earlier commanded, and Tsuna went white with shock as ten or so black-clad adults appeared from the trees, all holding sharp weapons and wearing black bandanas around their mouths like one of those ninjas you saw in cartoons.
"Get him!" the leader ordered. Tsuna noticed, from the corner of his eye, that he was wearing a bandana with a blue stripe down its side.
"Herbivores."
Tsuna had forgotten about Hibari! He prayed that the black haired carnivore wouldn't mistake him for one of the ninjas, and quickly crawled away, palms stinging, as Hibari began to smash the noses and dent the skulls of the poor assassination squad.
Speaking of assassination squads—who'd just tried to kill him?
Tsuna couldn't help but think that they couldn't have been very good assassins, since they were very loud, for one. They were also wearing all black, which couldn't be much use in the broad daylight.
He shrugged as he scrambled to his feet and dashed down the lane as fast as his aching feet would let him.
Back at the café, Lal was enthusiastically shouting at Colonello and gesturing wildly at the mess that Fon was currently mopping up.
Tsuna tried to shrink into a corner and hide there forever.
Sadly though, he failed and Lal immediately noticed him. "Sawada!" she barked, looking incredibly intimidating as Tsuna backed into a wall and tried to melt into a puddle and disappear.
She advanced dangerously, glowering. "What happened in the kitchen?" she demanded.
"Well," Tsuna decided that it'd be best to stick to the truth, and blatantly ignored a frantic Colonello behind the blue haired woman. "It was Colonello who slipped on the banana," he supplied, and trembled as Lal turned around to glare menacingly at the now pale man.
"Really now, Sawada?" she inquired icily. "That's not what blondie here told me."
"A-ah, I have a nickname now? H-how kind of you, Lal," Colonello tried, but even Tsuna knew that it was a hopeless case.
Lal was about to scream at them when the chimes tinkled, and she immediately schooled her features into those of a friendly waitress.
Tsuna marveled at how her angry expression disappeared in an instant to change to the exact opposite. It was a very convincing façade, too—if you hadn't been there three seconds ago, like Tsuna had, you'd never have guessed that she'd ever been angry.
"Sawada, go help the customer," she instructed. As she swept past the cowering duo, she hissed, "I'll deal with you later."
They shuddered.
Tsuna turned to smile at the customer, but his (admittedly shaky) smile froze when he noticed the Satan figure of Namimori standing at the entrance.
"A-ah, Hibari-san!" he exclaimed faintly. "How n-nice of you to come…" Tsuna hurried over, nearly tripping over his own feet. (He would have tripped over shoelaces, if he had any—the sneakers that had been soaked the previous day were currently drying off in the garden.)
Hibari didn't wait for Tsuna to lead him to a table. He swept straight in and sat down at a seat near the window.
Tsuna grabbed a menu from the shelf and was hurrying to the table when he really tripped and ended up sprawled across Hibari's table. The menu was sent flying to the next table, where it skidded straight off the edge and landed with a echoing thud on the floor.
Tsuna removed his scarlet face from where it had been smacked straight into Hibari's chest, and he apologized rapidly, clutching his bruised nose.
"S-sorry, Hibari-san!" he yelped. "I promise… I promise I won't do that again!"
Hibari looked oddly surprised and if Tsuna hadn't turned to hurry to the fallen menu, he would've noticed the faintest trace of pale pink on the normally emotionless face.
"You didn't hurt the customer, did you, Tsuna?" Reborn asked, coming out of the room.
"Oh! Hibari-san," Tsuna squeaked, as he straightened from where he'd been bent over picking up the menu, "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, herbivore," Hibari said stiffly.
"Ah, that's good then," Tsuna closed his eyes and sighed in relief. Then he noticed a strange feeling in his nose, and discovered that his nose was bleeding. "Ack!" Tsuna yelped, setting the menu down on Hibari's table as he ran off in search of tissues.
"I'm sorry, Hibari-san!" he apologized as he disappeared in the back room. "I'll be back in a moment!"
The two remaining men sent cold glares at each other, until Reborn exited the café noiselessly and disappeared down the street.
Tsuna reappeared. "Where did Reborn go?" he wondered aloud.
"He went out," Hibari informed him. "And I would like to order waffles with a side of green tea ice cream. "
"O-of course, Hibari-san," Tsuna said, moving to the kitchen window to tell Verde the order.
Instead, it was Fon standing there, a contented smile on his face. "Fon?" Tsuna said in surprise. "I thought it's Verde's turn today?"
"It was supposed to be," Fon said pleasantly. "But Lal yelled at him for being irresponsible and letting mere waiters handle the kitchen, so he's suspended for today."
"But personally," Fon added, looking suspicious, "I think that Lal did him a favor instead. He looked all too pleased to be able to tend to his precious experiments."
"That does sound like Verde," Tsuna admitted.
Then Hibari's sharp voice cut through their small talk and he said, "Quit talking and order, herbivore."
"I forgot!" Tsuna face palmed and quickly related Hibari's order to Fon, who set to work preparing.
Tsuna watched Fon whirl through the kitchen, skillfully scooping out the ice cream and pouring the waffle batter into the mold* with ease, and suddenly felt deep respect for the man.
He'd experienced firsthand how hard it was to make something in the kitchen.
In less than five minutes the order was prepared, the ice cream barely melting and the waffle just the right shade of golden-brown.
Tsuna carried the plate over to Hibari. "Hibari-san: one order of waffles with green tea ice cream," he announced, sliding the plate onto the table.
Hibari just nodded.
*I've never made my own waffles. Shocking, right? But I have no idea how to describe waffle making, so if I can get help on that, thank you ever so much.